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Local LLMs vs Cloud Flagships
Local models have officially surpassed GPT-4o on MMLU. See the benchmarks, projections, and what to run on your Mac today.
MMLU vs GPT-4o
Surpassed
Qwen3.5-9B beats GPT-4o
Best Local Coding
92%
DeepSeek-R1 = Claude 3.5
Sweet Spot
9B
Qwen3.5-9B on 8GB Mac
MMLU Parity
Reached
March 2026
Quality Benchmark (MMLU)
Qwen3.5-9B
91.1%
Local ✅
DeepSeek-R1
90.0%
Local ✅
Qwen3.5-4B
88.8%
Local ✅
GPT-4o
88.7%
Cloud
Claude 3.5
88.3%
Cloud
Llama 3.1 405B
85.2%
Local ✅
Qwen3.5-122B
84.8%
Local ✅
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
82.1%
Local ✅
GPT-3.5
71.4%
Cloud
Projection : When Will Local = Cloud?
Today
Mar 2026
Matched GPT-4o on MMLU
Next
Mid 2026
= GPT-4o across all tasks
Catch-up
Dec 2026
= Claude 4 / GPT-5
Surpass
Mid 2027
> Cloud
What Should You Use Today?
MacBook 16GB ⭐
Equivalent: GPT-4o level
- →Qwen3.5-9B (91.1% MMLU)
- →Qwen3.5-4B for coding (88.8%)
MacBook 24GB
Equivalent: GPT-4o+
- →Qwen3.5-9B (91.1%)
- →Qwen3.5-35B-A3B (82%)
- →Llama 3.1 70B if 32GB
Mac Studio 128GB
Equivalent: Beyond GPT-4o
- →Llama 3.1 405B (85%)
- →DeepSeek-R1 (90%)
Want the full analysis?
Detailed benchmarks, coding comparisons, and historical trends.